The present document relates to a system and method for determining the placement of advertising or other promotional materials. More specifically, the present document relates to instructing clients where to position advertising campaign materials in a retail structure or store.
Many retail companies or chains manage a large number of stores or retail structures, either company owned or through licensed franchise locations. Often, when the retail chain releases a new product, service, or other feature, the chain launches a related advertising campaign. This campaign may include signs, banners, graphics, and other items to be positioned around a store or retail structure. Similar advertising materials may be sent from a central agency or franchisor to each store or retail structure participating in the advertising campaign. Each piece of advertising material may include or be provided with instructions on where to position the advertising material in the store or retail location. For example, a particular sign may include the instructions “place on front door.”
One drawback to this approach is that each store or retail location may be constructed differently, with various components of the store located in random areas, or not included in the design of the store at all. For example, a specific restaurant chain may launch a new advertising campaign for all its stores in the United States. However, the stores may not all having similar architectural features. One store may be in an airport, consisting of a counter-service location having several cash registers, a menu board indicating items available for sale, and a kitchen out of view of the public. This location varies greatly from a standalone location which may have one or more entrance doors, a large number of windows, multiple counters, multiple menu boards, space for stand-up displays, and potentially an outside sign that can be changed to include updated advertisements. Similarly, one standalone location may vary from another standalone location. Aside from architectural features such as doors, windows counters, menu boards, etc., various standalone locations may have different traffic patterns and historic sales information, thereby altering optimal positioning of advertisement materials on each standalone location. In this example, sending the same set of advertising campaign items to each store would be wasteful as the airport location would use only a fraction of the materials used by the standalone stores, and each standalone store may have a different number of materials, as well as different placement locations for similar materials.